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// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhat did Kelly Yang say to the rowdy reader? Yang to behave.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kelly Yang
a dark-haired woman wearing glasses, smiling and holding two books, titled Front Desk and Key Player
Yang in 2022 with two of her children's books
Born (1984-08-29) August 29, 1984 (age 41)
Hong Kong
Occupationnovelist, political columnist
Education
Genres
  • Children's literature
  • Young adult literature
  • Literary fiction
Notable worksFront Desk
Notable awards
Children3
Website
kellyyang.com

Kelly Yang (born August 29, 1984)[1] is an Asian American writer known primarily for her novels for children. She won the 2018 Parents' Choice Gold Medal for Fiction and the 2019 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature for her first novel, Front Desk, and has since also written fiction for young adults and adults.

Biography

[edit]

Yang was born in Hong Kong and emigrated to the United States with her family when she was six.[2] At ten, she was working the front desk at her family's motel in Southern California.[3][4] She entered California State University, Los Angeles at the age of 13, transferred two years later to the University of California, Berkeley, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in political science in 2002. She then went on to Harvard Law School, where she received a Juris Doctor degree at the age of 20, but decided not to practice law.[3][5]

Yang served as an editorial columnist for the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong from 2010 to 2018 and also founded an after-school writing program for children called The Kelly Yang Project.[6] She later returned to coaching children in writing online during the COVID-19 pandemic.[7][8][9]

She published her first book, Front Desk, in 2018. For middle-grade readers, it is based on her experience managing her parents' motel and won the 2018 Parents' Choice Gold Medal for Fiction and the 2019 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature.[4] She followed it with several sequels: Three Keys in 2020, Room to Dream in 2021, Key Player in 2022, Top Story in 2023,[10] and Chef's Secret in 2025. Front Desk was optioned for a movie and Yang worked on a screenplay, but the movie was not made.[3] Finally Seen (2023) and Finally Heard (2024) constitute a separate series about a girl who comes to the United States from China to rejoin her family after five years[11] and in the sequel, is navigating adolescence and social media.[12] New From Here (2022) was written during and about the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic[13] and won a 2025 California Young Reader Medal at the intermediate level.[14][15] Her forthcoming Boss Games is the first of three middle-grades novels for Macmillan Publishers.[16]

Her 2020 young adult book Parachutes is about anti-Asian racism and sexual assault at an elite private school, and based on her own experiences at Harvard Law School.[7][8][17][18]

Her first adult novel, The Take, was published in 2026, and is about a young Chinese-American woman who is paid to exchange her blood with a middle-aged white Hollywood producer in an experimental age-reversal treatment.[3][19][20]

On January 2, 2026, Yang announced a new podcast with fellow author Kate DiCamillo, Storykind, intended for children aged 8 and older, parents, teachers, and librarians.[21]

Personal life

[edit]

Yang is married and has three children,[22] with whom she moved from Hong Kong to the United States in early 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.[14] Her husband rejoined them 18 months later.[23]

She has talked about how being tall—over 5 ft 7–in—helped her fit in in college despite her youth. In 2020 she wrote about being sexually assaulted by a classmate at Harvard and pressured by the administration to abandon her complaint.[3][18] She has also talked and written about experiencing anti-Asian racism in the United States[7][8][9] and about conservative hostility to books like hers that portray minorities and LGBTQ+ people sympathetically.[3]

Books

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Children's fiction

[edit]
  • Front Desk (2018)
  • Three Keys (2020)
  • Room to Dream (2021)
  • New From Here (2022)
  • Key Player (2022)
  • Private Label (2022)
  • Yes We Will (2022)
  • Finally Seen (2023)
  • Top Story (2023)
  • Finally Heard (2024)
  • Chef's Secret (2025)

Young adult fiction

[edit]
  • Parachutes (2020)

Adult fiction

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  • The Take (2026)

References

[edit]
  1. ↑ kellyyanghk (August 29, 2025). "This is 41!". Instagram. Retrieved May 30, 2026.
  2. ↑ Fang, Teresa (June 26, 2019). "Kid Reporters' Notebook: At the Front Desk". Scholastic Press.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Canfield, Kevin (April 10, 2026). "'Front Desk' children's author pivots with 'The Take,' a sharp critique of America's antiaging obsession". San Francisco Chronicle.
  4. 1 2 Yung, Sarah (May 7, 2020). "Q&A with Kelly Yang". www.publishersweekly.com. Retrieved May 15, 2020.
  5. ↑ Ho, Melanie (May 9, 2018). "From poverty to college at 13: Chinese immigrant experience in US". South China Morning Post. Retrieved May 15, 2020.
  6. ↑ "Kelly Yang". South China Morning Post. December 3, 2017. Retrieved May 15, 2020.
  7. 1 2 3 Song, Sharon (June 30, 2020). "Bay Area mom, NYT bestselling author shares her experiences amid rise in racism toward Asian-Americans". Oakland, California: KTVU.
  8. 1 2 3 Gandhi, Lakshmi (May 26, 2020). "Asian America: A new YA novel about teens, racism and rape culture finds resonance amid pandemic". NBC News.
  9. 1 2 Bitker, Janelle (February 25, 2021). "A surge of anti-Asian violence is forcing another racial reckoning in the Bay Area". San Francisco Chronicle. (Also published in Chinese.)
  10. ↑ "An interview with Kelly Yang". Just Imagine (podcast). December 3, 2022. Retrieved April 6, 2023.
  11. ↑ "Finally Seen by Kelly Yang". School Library Journal (review). September 29, 2023.
  12. ↑ "Finally Heard by Kelly Yang". School Library Journal (review). February 1, 2024.
  13. ↑ Lee, Michelle (May 2, 2022). "Review of New from Here". The Horn Book. Archived from the original on February 14, 2025.
  14. 1 2 kellyyanghk (August 24, 2025). "Five years ago, I brought my three kids from Hong Kong to the U.S., thinking we could escape COVID. We had no idea that it would be the start of a dramatic transcontinental family separation that would last one and a half years, and be the inspiration for NEW FROM HERE, which I wrote in my closet while single parenting three kids during a pandemic. Yesterday, I received the medal for the California Young Reader Award for NEW FROM HERE". Instagram.
  15. ↑ "Winners". California Young Reader Medal. Retrieved May 30, 2026.
  16. ↑ Tagen-Dye, Carly (May 21, 2026). "Kelly Yang Helps Kids Explore 'Our Rapidly Changing World' in Boss Games (Exclusive)". People.
  17. ↑ Valby, Karen (June 12, 2020). "Parachuting In, Then Speaking Out". The New York Times (review). It's not justice, but there is joy that she has the final word here.
  18. 1 2 Yang, Kelly (May 14, 2020). "Harvard Law School Came After Me for Speaking Up About My Sexual Assault". Medium. Retrieved May 15, 2020.
  19. ↑ "'The Substance' Meets 'Yellowface' in Kelly Yang's Adult Debut 'The Take' — See the Cover! (Exclusive)". People. Retrieved January 2, 2026.
  20. ↑ Miller, Kerri; Gordon, Kelly (May 22, 2026). "Kelly Yang's 'The Take' is an anti-aging thriller". MPR News.
  21. ↑ "Authors Kate DiCamillo and Kelly Yang Announce New Podcast 'StoryKind' (Exclusive)". People. Retrieved January 2, 2026.
  22. ↑ "About Kelly Yang". Front Desk. Retrieved May 15, 2020.
  23. ↑ Yang, Kelly (kellyyanghk) (July 31, 2021). "After 1.5 years apart, our family separated on two continents because of the pandemic, yesterday my husband and I were reunited at long last!". Twitter. Archived from the original on July 31, 2021.
[edit]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kelly_Yang&oldid=1358899670"